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(This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
SOUTH-WEST CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[42381]
C. O. 1998
December 22.]
IF JAN 07
SECTION 2.
No. 1.
Consul Ottewill to Sir Edward Grey-(Received December 22.)
(No. 5. Confidential.) Sir,
Tengyueh, November 22, 1906.
I HAVE the honour to inclose herewith copy of a despatch which I have addressed to His Majesty's Minister at Peking, on the subject of the proposed survey by Burmah officers of a railway from Tengyueh to Tali.
I have, &c. (Signed)
H. A. OTTEWILL.
Inclosure 1 in No. 1.
Consul Ottewill to Sir J. Jordan.
(No. 51. Confidential.) Sir,
Tengyueh, November 22, 1906. I HAVE the honour to submit the following Report with regard to the negotiations for the reconnaissauce survey for a railway from Tengyuch to Tali. Such a survey gives as many details as possible, but, from its very name, is of a rough description, and is essentially different from the one successfully carried out in the Taiping Valley last year for the proposed Bhamo-Tengyueh line. The country over which it is to extend has such natural obstacles to railway construction that the primary object of the engineers would naturally be to endeavour to discover a possible trace, and then to report whether or not the expense of construction would be so great as to be prohibitive.
The matter bas, I believe, been the subject of telegraphic correspondence between the Indian Government and yourself.
On the 30th September last the Chief Secretary to the Burmah Government sent me a telegram for repetition to His Majesty's Consul-General at Yünnan-fu, requesting that he and I should take steps to obtain protection from the Chinese anthorities for the reconnaissance party. In forwarding the telegram, I had the honour to suggest that he and I should make the request that the Tengyueh Taotai should send a deputy to accompany the party. A telegraphic correspondence ensued between Barmah and Yünnan-fu, in the middle of which I left for Bhamo on official business. When there,
his Honour the Lieutenant-Governor expressed a wish to see me at Maymyo. I accordingly went and discussed the question with him.
When I left Bhamo to return to Tengyuch on the 7th November the situation with regard to the reconnaissance, so far as I could understand it, was that the Yunnan-fu Viceroy--who had given his verbal assent in the summer-had withdrawn it, and matters were at a deadlock.
On arriving in China I was told that, as the party was coming with foreign soldiers as guards, orders had been sent from Yunnan-fu to the Taotai to withstand them by force if necessary. Orders were certainly given in this sense, so far as I can ascertain. As I was away, the Taotai talked over his orders with my Secretary, Mr. Han Wen Tsu. He admitted that he had no means of carrying out such orders, and he did not know what to do. I may remark that such a step as sending foreign troops with the party had never been contemplated by the Government of Burmah for an instant.
As soon as possible after my return to Tengyueh I saw the Taotai, who immediately Ho then asked me whether the Tali party was coming. I said of course it was. proposed that they should come as ordinary travellers, and that in describing them I should use the phrase "yu li," which is translated in the Treaty of Tien-tsin as travelling for pleasure." He added that so long as they stayed in the I-Hsi circuit, e., his jurisdiction, he would protect them, and that there was no need to refer the marter to Yunnan-fu at all. This way out of his difficulty was shown him by my Secretary above mentioned,
I referred the suggestion to the Government of Burmah, and have had the honour
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